2359h
The real hero in the Cinderella fairy tale
Many of us might know the fairy tale of Cinderella, made famous by the Disney animation adaptations. For those who might not have read the story or watched the movies, let me TikTok summarise it:
“Once upon a time… Cinderella, a (beautiful) young girl is orphaned. Her Evil Stepmother and two step-sisters mistreat her and make her the house servant. Cinderella slaves from dawn till dusk and basically leads a wretched life.
One day, the King throws a ball for his son (the Prince, duh), and all the maidens of the kingdom are invited — the king is trying to get his son to marry. Cinderella is considered a maiden by the laws of the land, but how could she go to the ball when her servant chores are not yet finished, said the evil stepmother (b*tch…), who proceeds to dress her own daughters in the grandest finery and together they ship off to the ball with the aim to snare the Prince’s hand in marriage.
Poor Cinderella works her hardest but could only finish her chores after the ball has started. And she has no gown to wear… 🥲. Enter the Fairy Godmother, who conjures up the most amazing gown, magicks up a pumpkin and several rodents into a horse-and-carriage set complete with pages and footmen, and as a finishing touch, two glass slippers for Cinderella’s tiny feet. She’s ready for the ball now, but alas has to return home by midnight else everything reverts to type.
The prince is enthralled with Cinderella and dances with no-one but her. She’s pretty caught up with the Prince too, so much so she forgets her 2359h curfew until the clock starts to strike 12. “Oh no! I have to go,” she tells the Prince and rushes off, leaving just one glass slipper behind in her haste. The prince chases after her but cannot catch up, is distraught, but finds that glass slipper.
A Royal Decree is issued that the Prince will marry the maiden whose foot fits the slipper. The Prince goes across the country searching, and searching… Arriving at Cinderella’s house, the final plot twist is the stepmother trying to prevent Cinderella from trying on the slipper, but obviously this is Disney and good always triumphs.
Cinderella daintily steps in and it’s a perfect fit. And lo and behold the Prince & her get married, it’s now Princess Cinderella, and I forgive you, evil step mother….
And they lived happily ever after. The End.”
The Fairy Godmother is sometimes hailed as the big hero of Cinderella’s story (her comical Disney persona notwithstanding). She gets Cinderella dolled up, pimps her ride, gets her confidence up, and makes her irresistible to the prince.
The more modern take says the hero is Cinderella herself — as god-forbid that she needs someone else to “save” her (As a father to two girls, I’m all for this). For Cindy herself is already a strong-willed, independent-minded girl who could stand up to any adversity and hold her own with the aristocracy. That really gets the prince going, and they could dance and talk for hours, because she’s the prince’s equal. It was the prince’s privilege to marry her.
In my opinion, the real hero of the story is The Evil Stepmother.
There’s no better teacher than experience — the tougher the experience, the better the teacher.
Imagine if the stepmother was not evil; imagine if she treated Cinderella the same as her own daughters — well, Cinderella might turn out to be a spoilt brat, and not at all attractive in character.
Cinderella’s stepmother miscalculated badly; she thought she was breaking the girl down, but little did she realise that she was honing Cinderella, building her up. She scored an own-goal.
A different stepmother (parent)
Here’s the counter-story. Many years ago, Hong Kong’s TVB produced a popular drama series called 家好月圆 (translated as Moonlight Resonance)
The show has too many twists and turns for me to summarise here, but TL;DR — the drama also has a stepmother (played by legendary Hong Kong actress 米雪 Michelle Yim) who’s also evil, but she did not make the same mistake Cinderella’s stepmother made.
For those of us who understand Cantonese, here’s the pertinent clip (maybe turn the volume down or connect your ear/headphones if you’re in the office — be prepared for shouting and melodrama):
Recapping the conversation in the clip above, the stepmother sends her biological daughter and stepson to study abroad. But the way she supported the two youngsters was drastically different:
- To the stepson, she gave everything he asked for — a big apartment and fat allowance, car, motorcycle, gadgets, holidays — he never suffered, never wanted for anything. If he spent it all, he asked for more and it was given.
- To her daughter on the other hand, she gave only the bare essentials — subsistence-level allowance, tiny flat, no frills, no luxuries. If the daughter didn’t have enough, she had to take a part-time job. There were no handouts.
No prizes for guessing which person turned out to be more successful.
For this particular stepmother was much more strategic. Give as much as possible to the stepson to make him weak, and strengthen the daughter by the opposite means.
Because when things come easily, how do you build Work Ethic? Grit? Resilience? Resourcefulness? Creativity?
You can’t. You’re used to things being done for you, an easy life. And when the going gets tough, there’s no tough to get going.
The story for our children (and us)
We should definitely NOT subject our children to the abuse that Cinderella had to bear in the fairy tale story. No child deserves that.
But as a parent to two girls, I don’t think it’s a sound philosophy to have everything sorted for our children, of whom too many are wrapped in cotton wool these days. Such a practice is doing them a disservice, because they don’t learn useful skills growing up; they can run to Mama and Papa whenever they meet difficulties, and it’s magicked away.
Maybe as parents — let’s not solve every single problem for our children. Let’s not jet to school with their homework or textbook which they left at home by mistake — perhaps a couple of talkings-to by the teacher will help teach them responsibility.
And perhaps a part-time holiday job teaches them what that next enrichment class won’t — how to earn their keep, the value of money, how to deal with bosses, colleagues (some who will be lazy), customers (some who will be difficult). Things that will be useful in their later careers, and to them as young people growing up.
I’m sensitive that this is a first-world problem, so I am only writing this in the context of Singapore, where I’ve lived for most of my life. Children born in a less-wealthy country, or even a poor family in a developed country have to be independent from younger. Granted that this independence does not always translate into “commercial” success, but there’re important skills that are learnt in the process. Like how to problem-solve, and be resourceful generally.
The issue has been cascading for some time, and in my opinion, permeates much of Singapore’s society, not just children. Most of our existential problems have already been solved —almost everyone has their basic needs met. That was no accident, it was through the brilliant foresight, hard work and sound execution of those who came before us — our Pioneer and Merdeka Generation of leaders and people. We should be grateful for that.
The unfortunate (side-)effect is many of us have become too comfortable, given the great strides that Singapore made and what we’ve developed into today.
Which is why so few of us venture overseas to work. Much easier to just stay home; there’re enough decent jobs here. And once getting onto the treadmill of working to finance the condo, car, annual holiday, children’s enrichment classes… you’re handcuffed and “running to stand still”.
Don’t get me wrong — it’s a good thing that our economy creates enough good jobs. The flip side is for an economy to not create enough good jobs, and citizens are forced by circumstances to pursue livelihoods overseas. That’s not good at all, both for the country and the individual.
And I’m not saying that staying home is being weak — some of us have caregiving responsibilities to less-abled family members, or aged and/or ill seniors at home. So not everyone has that luxury.
What I’m talking about are the Singaporeans not wanting to relocate to another city to work because “I’d miss my favourite carrot cake too much,” or “The traffic there is horrendous. I can’t take it,” or “What? Hardship posting to Southeast Asia?” or some other trivial excuse.
So much so that the Singapore Government has to give all sorts of financial incentives to encourage (push) firms to internationalise and professionals to work overseas. You don’t find that elsewhere.
Personally I find it counterproductive, and this has also created bad behaviour — some businesses’ entire business-models are how to extract the maximum from government grants — these businesses really have no right to exist.
Personally, I think our fiscal resources can be better allocated elsewhere. Maybe the government should be less like Cinderella’s stepmother and more like the Michelle Yim-stepmother instead. 🤔
I am Singaporean
CNA’s documentary “On the Red Dot: I am Singaporean” is a great series to watch.
It was cool to see the profiled Singaporeans who were leaving their mark in their professions away from Singapore — from Danelle Tan, the first female Singaporean footballer to play in Europe (with Borussia Dortmund then— she’s now playing Down Under), to renowned conductor Wong Kah Chun who leads top orchestras in Japan. These were inspirations to our girls and I as we watched the series together when I was home from ArcLab Malaysia.
There is an irony though — these Singaporeans are special simply because there are so few of them. And based on what I saw in these episodes, I doubt any of them ventured overseas because of the Government’s support schemes.
But to be fair, I do think this is very, very gradually changing, and hope more Singaporeans will venture overseas to build careers and grow businesses. Because ultimately the perspectives and professional & personal growth that comes from working in a new, foreign market will be at a wholly-different scale from merely staying in Singapore.
I had the privilege to work for a few years overseas in my first job, and building our company in Malaysia now (and a 3rd market which I hope to announce very soon 🤞 ) has given me experience I could never have gotten at home.
On that note, I was glad to host HRTech guru Adrian Tan to ArcLab Malaysia last year. His insight was similar to mine, and I hope that what we’re both seeing will continue. Kita Boleh!
Postscript
In my last piece “1600”, I ended with a short passage about Ayla, the protagonist of Jean M. Auel’s “Earth Children’s” prehistoric epic book series.
In Ms Auel’s stories, Ayla was an extraordinary woman because her being an orphaned Cro-Magnon child adopted by a Neanderthal Clan gave her the unique experience which made her different from every single human in the Ice-Age. That shaped her into that Mary Sue heroine that she would never have become if she had not had that that tough “step-parent”-ish time in her life (The irony here is that her Neanderthal adoptive mother was actually very loving to Ayla. But you get the point).
Perhaps more of us in Singapore need at least a little bit of that toughening experience. I think this will help us to build a better, more resilient Singapore.
(And for your casual reading, please consider this fan-fiction that I wrote over the last few months — inspired by the story I just mentioned).
